Marianna Mkrtchyan

Secretary General of Armenia in UNESCO: Yerevan has constantly voiced the issue of its cultural heritage preservation in other countries

Armenia became member of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in June and this is an important achievement, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ashot Hovakimyan has stated at a press conference on July 20.

Touching upon inclusion of Ani, Armenia's medieval capital built during Bagratuni's dynasty, in the list of UNESCO World Heritage, the Deputy Minister noted that Turkey had submitted application long ago however it was rejected and recommendations were given to indicate the ownership of the monument and in the final application it was already indicated that Ani is an Armenian town.

Armenia will submit application for including "Kochari: The traditional group dance" in UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017, Hovakimyan informed.

Deputy Culture Minister Nerses Ter-Vardanyan in turn informed that the Armenian side has prepared a booklet about Ani. According to him due to this booklet UNESCO international experts managed to better study the history of the city and got acquainted with the monuments.

"Inclusion of Ani in the list of UNESCO heritage is extremely important. From now on Turkey will be obliged to protect the monuments of Ani and must agree all the issues related to restoration of the monuments. This is very important, as we have witnessed many times how Armenian churches on the territories of other countries were destroyed or turned into mosques" Ter-Vardanyan noted.

Meanwhile, Vahram Kajoyan, Secretary General of the Armenian National Commission for UNESCO and the head of department of international organizations in Armenia's MFA noted that official Yerevan during the recent years has constantly voiced the issue of preservation of its cultural heritage in other countries. According to him it is not a secret how the neighboring countries keep the Armenian cultural heritage, except for Iran, which has included three Armenian monasteries in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.